Minister defends six-week hospital appointment notice letters

Letters for some clinics are being sent out six weeks before appointments

Giving patients a maximum of six weeks' notice of hospital appointments will bring overall waiting times down, the health minister has said.

Lawrie Hooper said a fifth of appointments at Noble's Hospital were missed.

Concerns were raised at a trial being carried out by Manx Care for orthopaedic that appointments could hinder patients.

But Mr Hooper said it aimed to make clinics more efficient.

He said planned leave by consultants was generally booked six weeks in advance, so the timeframe for letters meant fewer clinics would have to be cancelled, which would reduce the risk of rescheduled appointments being missed.

Under the current arrangements, letters with dates for appointments are sent out as soon as the clinics are scheduled, which can vary from a few weeks to more than a year in advance in some cases.

'Lives on hold'

However, Jason Moorhouse said the current system saw diary clashes detected "relatively quickly", and shortening the notice period could leave people who could not attend waiting even longer.

Tim Glover MHK said as some appointments could be up to a year away for some patients, the rest of their lives would be "effectively on hold" while they waited for the letter.

He said: "I get the admirable want to get DNAs down, but a little bit more notice to patients, particularly the elderly and vulnerable would be desirable."

Mr Hooper told Tynwald members about 1,600 appointments were cancelled at Noble's Hospital each month due to clinician unavailability.

He said the key rationale behind the trial was to keep disruption to patients to a minimum but reducing the need to reschedule the clinics

The system of only scheduling appointments six weeks in advance meant those who had waited the longest would be the first to be offered a new appointment if the original date was cancelled, he added.

Why not follow BBC Isle of Man on Facebook and X? You can also send story ideas to [e-mail]